Irem Arcade Hits for PC - R-Type Leo, Air Duel etc.

[Mortificator]

You should be able to map your 360 controller's D-pad to the axes by installing the XBCD driver.

And X Multiply indeed kicks ass.

[Zorator]

I'd love to play Image Fight on a PSP!

You can, with custom firmware you can run any PS1 game. The PSP's wide screen is a great way to play tate games if you don't have a proper monitor setup. I play IF on my PSP all the time but I can't seem to beat it with the horrible stock D-pad.

[MathU]

Still waiting for them to patch out the problems with this collection before I buy it. Don't let me down, DotEmu.

[Edmond Dantes]

Still waiting for them to patch out the problems with this collection before I buy it. Don't let me down, DotEmu.

That was my first thought, but then I thought "maybe if more people buy it, that'll encourage them to patch it."

[The Coop]

Well, for those waiting on this patch, don't bother. I made a thread on their forums, and after waiting two months, finally got a response after commenting in said thread about their lack of communication.

There is no patch. v1.2 will not happen, as they've dropped the patch due to "incoming projects." So yeah, Dotemu is now EA junior when it comes to fixing their games... promises, but no delivery.

[Observer]

Sadly, it got kind of obvious when months passed without response... What hurts me the most is that they are on a platform (the PC) where usually fixing this kind of shit can be done without much of a hassle. I mean, you don't have to send it to Microsoft for certification or some crazy stuff like that. Half of the time, users themselves point the glaring mistakes and show/comment what can be done about it!

Whatever.

I recently changed my OS to Win7 Pro 64-bit edition. Does this still suffer the same problems there? (I'm inclined to think it does...)

Hope whoever did the interface gets scolded.

[kevenz]

another reason to get mame.... seriously this "DotEmu" company is just using mame and roms you can download for free.

[MathU]

Yes, illegally.

[Estebang]

It's not like you're actually supporting Irem, though. I would buy the pack in a heartbeat if that was the case.

[MJR]

If Irem does not exist any more then I guess there isn't much left to support.

For the record, I bought this immediately, but it felt quite bad quality. Slowdown and sound issues that were never fixed. I wont buy anything like that from dotemu again. Well at least I got roms legally so I can feel justified on playing them on Mame. But I'd rather play PCB versions anyway..

[brentsg]

This pack can now be had for $2.

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/p ... cade-hits/

Use this code for 25% off: GMG20-PJFEW-Y16HK

[Edmond Dantes]

Kinda makes those of us who payed full price feel gypped.

Well... except that it still legitimizes using MAME.

[The Coop]

I feel gypped anyway, since they never fixed the performance problems, or added the promised content.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Do they really use MAME? I don't know whether it's possible to prove, but that's quite an accusation.

[k39bk]

I was really tempted to buy this one when I first heard about it but then complains began to surface.

BTW, they should make a Technosoft or Compile collection, or may be a collection of all R-Type clones

[The Coop]

Do they really use MAME? I don't know whether it's possible to prove, but that's quite an accusation.

They use ROMs without a doubt, but the people who made the game altered them. The names of the files aren't the same, and the number of files within each game is different from the ROMs that you can download. So while the games are being emulated, I can't tell if it's MAME that's being used, because the ROMs won't work in regular versions of MAME.

[brentsg]

Just a heads up on this pack, it crashes Windows 8 when you try to load any game. So much for using my new rig to record these games for review......

Doesn't Win8 have a compatibility mode?

[Edmond Dantes]

Just a heads up on this pack, it crashes Windows 8 when you try to load any game. So much for using my new rig to record these games for review......

Doesn't Win8 have a compatibility mode?

Has compatibility mode ever solved any problems with any game ever?

[Ghegs]

Has compatibility mode ever solved any problems with any game ever?

Of course it has. A surprising amount of older games can be run on modern systems with it, though some might require an additional patch.

I'm playing Sega Rally 2 (PC version released in 1999) on my Win7 64-bit right now.

[Edmond Dantes]

That's honestly a surprise to me. I've tried practically every game I own with compatibility mode and have had a success rate of roughly 0% percent--even games people assured me would work.

I usually use an actual Win98 rig to run older games because its less of a headache to deal with than a lot of the rigamoroles you're expected to put up with these days.

EDIT: On a completely different note... for some reason, I hear a lot of people diss Air Duel. I don't see why--yeah it's kind of old-fashioned, but it's pretty fun. Some people say the levels are too long and boring... well, the first level is, but in the second level things pick up almost immediately. Truly an underrated game.

[AntiFritz]

Just a heads up on this pack, it crashes Windows 8 when you try to load any game. So much for using my new rig to record these games for review......

Doesn't Win8 have a compatibility mode?

Has compatibility mode ever solved any problems with any game ever?

From memory if you don't use compatibility mode then you cant use the mouse wheel in diablo 2 under windows 7. So I can assure you it atleast works on some games.

[Kobayashi]

Great collection. I have.

[BPzeBanshee]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/shmups/ ... 044085820/

I complained about how long it was taking for them to fix up Raiden Legacy and the lack of response to my email some months ago, also mentioning Irem Arcade Hits. Within an hour I got this Jessica DotEmu right onto it and querying about them both and now she says (for those who don't use FB:

The support team is on it right now (your email was in spam...). About IREM, we fixed all the bugs 2 months ago and added new features

So anyone actually able to confirm this?
EDIT: well the former still is riddled with performance bugs, wonder if the latter will be any different. There's a Mac port of Irem Arcade Hits now so you'd think they would've been more attentive to it.

[Edmond Dantes]

I just logged in to my DotEmu account and checked.

It still says the latest version is 1.1... which is what I've been playing for a year or so now... so either they made the upgrade and never posted it, or "Jessica" is yankin' yer chain.

*Sigh* I just play them all on Shmupmame now. (Undercover Cops seems to have graphic glitches on Shmupmame, but maybe that's normal?) Although it kinda irks me that I had to use an emulator and quasilegal roms to play something I legally bought. This is precisely why I don't pay for downloads.

[BPzeBanshee]

Hmm, what a shame. Seems DotEmu may be taking to talking crap instead of just not talking at all now. I'll see what this PR lady says this time around. Mind you I'm still waiting for a response to the last reply I made regarding Raiden Legacy.

[MeshGearFox]

I bought this recently, wasn't happy with the emulation, and modified MAME to use Dotemu's ROMs instead.

Download is here. Includes all the source as per the MAME license:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/220 ... u_Mame.zip

The modified source files are M92.c and M72.c. I also changed the driver list to only included the drivers for the Dotemu ROMs (plus uccopsj) for space reasons, although you can recompile it with the original driver list merged with the new ones if you want. Also, only included the MAME UI executable. Both 64 and 32 bit versions are available.

I don't have Kung Fu or Vigilante working yet because the Dotemu roms are weird. I'll look into it if there's interest -- I don't get the impression these games are that popular..?

I'd like to try to get the roms from Raiden Legacy working too, although I haven't had nearly as many issues with the emulation in that, so less priority.

Also I'm still trying to get all of the checksums in line although I don't think they're causing issues right now.

You need to rename the Dotemu ROM zips as such:

cosmccde - Cosmic Cops
imgfigde - Image Fight
lohtde - Legend of Hero Tonma
bchoppde - Battle Chopper
nspirtde - Ninja Spirit
hharryde - Hammerin' Harry
airdulde - Air Duel
dbreedde - Dragon Breed
gunforde - Gunforce
bmastede - Blade Master
uccopsde - Undercover Cops
mysticde - Mystic Riders
rtypelde - R-Type Leo
inhuntde - In the Hunt
ssoldrde - Superior Soldiers
gnfrc2de - Gunforce 2

--- other stuff ---

Basically the Dotemu ROMs are almost identical to the ROMs mame wants, just structured differently, in the sense that a lot of the individual binaries are merged.

So in the R-Type Leo roms, you have four separate CPU binaries -- two sets of high and low order bytes I guess. In the Dotemu roms, the high and low order binaries are already interleaved, and then the two sets are clumped together into a single cpu1.bin. cpu2.bin is the same as the sound roms in the MAME set if you interleave them. cpu2d.bin doesn't seem to be used, and sound.bin is the rtl-da.bin file. I've also noticed the Dotemu roms have a lot of extraneous padding on the files. Don't know what that's about.

Graphics roms are merged sequentially in the Dotemu set.

sounds.bin is generally what gets used in the "irem" rom region.

So basically some fairly minor modifications to the relevant, existing drivers in MAME result in these working without issue.

[The Coop]

A 32-bit executable would be cool, MeshGearFox. And nice work on this project.

[MeshGearFox]

A 32-bit executable would be cool, MeshGearFox. And nice work on this project.

Compiling now, although I was mistaken in assuming it wouldn't compile drivers for games that were in the driver list, so it'll be a bit before I can put it up.

Update:

32-bit executable is in the original zip I uploaded. I think Dropbox is still synching it but it should be up in no more than ten minutes. I don't have a 32-bit system handy to try it on so tell me if there are any issues.

[Sinful]

There's no TATE.

Ick. That's usually an automatic no-buy for me. But there's enough non-tate stuff on here that appeals to me, so I'll still consider it.

As long as the resolution is right, I wouldn't worry since you can just drag the game image on a much larger TV. Thus no need for tate at all. It's what I do now for all my MAME games. So no more need to flip the monitor in it's side. ... Plus for 2 & 3 screen games like Darius 2 it really helps cut down on the squinting.

You just need either a) a videocard with a TV out, or b) a converter from monitor output to HDMI converter thingy. I'm using option b. Right now I'm on the look out for another old CRT type TV so I can hook up to it via S-Video or RGB again, since older games look so much better on it. Until then filters like Blargg NTSC or whatever else via HDMI connection will have to do...

[Raytrace]

I will see if I can get the above working, as to be honest the lack of scaling other than 'blurry' or super eagle type was annoying me, so I would prefer to play them in MAME.